UPDATE: Orientalism and Terrorism (3/10/07; 5/26/07-6/2/07)

Humanities and Social Sciences Congress, May 26 - June 2, 2007, Saskatoon, Canada.

Session title: Orientalism and Terrorism

Organizer: Pavan Kumar Malreddy, Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan

Discussant: Dr. Ron Wheeler, Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan.

(for Canadian Association of Geographers)

Session Description:

Following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 (9/11), the US governmentcompiled a long list of suspect terrorist countries. Although this list wasinitially restricted to the counties in the Middle East, it has been graduallyexpanded to other regions in South and Southeast Asia. Subsequently, anyonebearing the features of Asian or Muslim identity ("brown-colour") became primesuspects of terrorism in the Western world. While these developments entail aprocess of reducing diverse cultural identities into singularity; the notion ofthe Orient as a collective geo-cultural entity and a cultivating ground ofterrorists has become a latent discursive theme in the contemporary academicwriting. Correspondingly, a complex interaction of state sponsored researchprograms, think tanks, academics, and "area studies" specialists have unpackeda "new terrorism" discourse that informs much of the post-9/11 geopolitics. Tothis end, a wide variety of local and ethnic struggles, and other politicalunrest throughout Asia have been drawn into the "new terrorism" discourse aswell as the global "war on terror." Recent trends in the discourse on newterrorism purport that the Islamist political struggles in Asia are part andparcel of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. These include organizations such asPattani el- Jihadi in Thailand, Abu Sayyaf Group in Philippines, Jamaatul-Fuqra in Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad in India, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysiaand Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia.In light of such complex developments conflating "terrorism" with a host ofAsian identities, this panel invites papers that reflect upon, but notrestricted to: a) essentialization of Asian identities since 9/11; b)'ethno-terrorism' and international terrorism; c) Area studies and terrorism;d) security studies and terrorism; e) discourses of terrorism; f) terrorism andethnic violence; g) eco-racism and eco-terrorism; h) anthropometric geography;i) resurgence of Orientalist discourse.